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Swift 5 Module Stability Workaround for Binary Frameworks

Blog post from Luciq

Post Details
Company
Date Published
Author
Hesham Abd-Elmegid
Word Count
563
Language
English
Hacker News Points
-
Summary

Since its introduction in 2014, Swift has undergone significant development, with many teams transitioning from Objective-C to Swift or using a mix of both, thanks to its safer and more maintainable code features. A major advancement came with Swift 5, which introduced ABI stability, allowing the Swift runtime libraries to be part of the operating system, thus eliminating the need to include them with each app. However, for those distributing binary frameworks, module stability is also required, which remains under development. Without module stability, binary frameworks purely in Swift aren't feasible, but a workaround involves using Swift internally with an Objective-C interface. This approach, confirmed by Apple engineer Jordan Rose, allows developers to leverage Swift's benefits while maintaining compatibility, paving the way for a gradual shift from Objective-C to Swift.